CHAPTER XIII. JACKSON'S LAST YEAR IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Mr. Van Buren, like his predecessor, Mr. Calhoun, suffered mental martyrdom while presiding over the Senate as Vice-President. His manner was bland, as he thumped with his mallet when the galleries were out of order, or declared that "The ayes have it," or, "The memorial is referred." He received his fusillade of snubs and sneers as the ghost of Chreusa received the embraces of AEneas—he heeded them not. He leaned back his head, threw one leg upon the other, and sat as if he were a pleasant sculptured image, destined for that niche of his life.
Henry Clay, then in his prime, was the champion of the United States Bank in the Senate. One day in debate he broke out in the most violent appeal to Martin Van Buren, then presiding in the Senate, to go to the President and represent to him the actual condition of the country. "Tell him," said Clay, "that in a single city more than sixty bankruptcies, involving a loss of upward of fifteen millions of dollars, have occurred. Tell him of the alarming decline in the value of all property. Tell him of the tears of helpless widows, no longer able to earn their bread, and of unclad and unfed orphans who have been driven by his policy out of the busy pursuits in which but yesterday they were gaining an honest livelihood."
The centennial birthday of George Washington was duly honored in the city which he had founded and which bore his name. Divine services were performed at the Capitol, and there was a dinner at Brown's Hotel, at which Daniel Webster prefaced the first toast in honor of the Father of his Country by an eloquent speech of an hour in length. In the evening there were two public balls—"one for the gentry at Carusi's saloon, and the other for mechanics and tradesmen at the Masonic Temple."
Congress had proposed to pay signal homage to the memory of Washington on the centennial anniversary of his birth by removing his remains to the crypt beneath the dome of the Capitol. Mr. Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington, had given his assent, but John A. Washington, then the owner of Mount Vernon, declined to permit the removal of the remains.
Congress purchased Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Washington, and the House ordered a full length picture of him from Vanderlyn, a celebrated New York artist. A commission was also given to Horatio Greenough for a colossal statue of Washington in a sitting posture, to be placed on a high pedestal in the centre of the rotunda of the Capitol. The Washington National Monument Association, after consultation with men of acknowledged artistic taste, selected from among the numerous designs submitted a simple obelisk, five hundred feet in height, for the erection of which the American people began at once to contribute.
When "the solid men of Boston" ascertained that General Jackson had actually signed the order for the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States while enjoying their hospitalities they were very angry. Not long afterward they learned that the United States frigate Constitution, a Boston-built vessel, which was being repaired at the Charlestown Navy Yard, was to be ornamented with a full-length figure of General Jackson as a figure-head. This was regarded as an insult, and the carver who was at work on the figure was requested to stop working on it. This he declined to do, and had his half-carved block of wood taken to the Navy Yard, where he completed his task under the protection of a guard of marines. When the figure-head was completed it was securely bolted to the cutwater of the Constitution, which was then hauled out to her anchorage, and a vessel was stationed on either side of her.
The Bostonians grew more and more indignant, and finally a daring young mariner from Cape Cod, Captain Samuel Dewey, determined that he would decapitate the obnoxious image. The night which he selected was eminently propitious, as a severe rain storm raged, accompanied by heavy thunder and sharp lightning. Dewey sculled his boat with a muffled oar to the bow of the frigate, where he made it fast, and climbed up, protected by the head boards, only placed on the vessel the previous day. Then, with a finely tempered saw, he cut off the head, and returned with it to Boston, where a party of his friends were anxiously waiting for him at Gallagher's Hotel. He was at once made a lion of by the Whigs, and Commodore Elliott was almost frantic with rage over the insult thus offered to his chief.
Dewey soon afterward went to Washington, where he exhibited the grim features of the head to several leading Whigs, and finally carried it, tied up in a bandana handkerchief, to the Navy Department. Sending in his card to Mr. Mahlon Dickerson, then the Secretary of the Navy, he obtained an audience. He was a short, chunky sailor- man, with resolute blue-gray eyes, which twinkled as he said, "Have I the honor of addressing the Secretary of the Navy?"
"You have," replied Mr. Dickerson, "and, as I am very busy, I will thank you to be brief."
"Mr. Dickerson," said the Captain, "I am the man who removed the figure-head from the Constitution, and I have brought it here to restore it."
Secretary Dickerson threw himself back in his chair and looked with astonishment at the man who had cast such an indignity on the Administration.
"Well, sir," said he, in an angry tone, "you are the man who had the audacity to disfigure Old Ironsides?"
"Yes, sir, I took the responsibility."
"Well, sir, I will have you arrested immediately," and the Secretary reached toward his bell to summon his messenger.
"Stop, Mr. Secretary," said Captain Dewey; "you, as a lawyer, know that there is no statute against defacing a ship-of-war, and all you can do is to sue me for trespass, and that in the county where the offense was committed. If you desire it, I will go back to Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and stand my trial."
Mr. Dickerson reflected a moment and said: "You are right; and now tell me how you took away the head."
Dewey told his story, and the story goes that Secretary Dickerson asked him to wait while he stepped over to the White House, followed by a messenger carrying the head. When General Jackson saw it, and heard the Secretary's story, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Why, that," he cried at length—"why, that is the most infernal graven image I ever saw. The fellow did perfectly right. You've got him, you say; well, give him a kick and my compliments, and tell him to saw it off again." Dewey was after this frequently at Washington, and he finally obtained the appointment of Postmaster in a small Virginia town. He used to have on his visiting cards the representation of a handsaw, under which was inscribed, "I came, I saw, I conquered."
General Jackson always liked the physical excitement of a horse- race, where a large assemblage thrills with but one thought from the word "Go!" until the winning horse reaches the goal, and he was always to be seen at the races over the National Course, just north of Washington City. Delegations of sporting men from the Atlantic cities crowded into the metropolis during the race weeks; there were jockey-club dinners and jockey-club balls; and the course resounded to the footfalls of noted horses, especially Boston, Sir Charles, Emily, and Blue Dick. In 1836 General Jackson had a filly of his own raising brought from the Hermitage and entered for a race by Major Donelson, his private secretary. Nor did he conceal his chagrin when the filly was beaten by an imported Irish colt named Langford, owned by Captain Stockton, of the navy, and he had to pay lost wagers amounting to nearly a thousand dollars, while Mr. Van Buren and other devoted adherents who had bet on the filly were also losers.
Baillie Peyton, of Tennessee, used to narrate an amusing account of a visit which he made to the National Race Course with General Jackson and a few others to witness the training of some horses for an approaching race. They went on horseback, General Jackson riding his favorite gray horse, and wearing his high white fur hat with a broad band of black crape, which towered above the whole group. The General greatly enjoyed the trials of speed, until a horse named Busiris began to rear and plunge. This stirred Old Hickory's mettle, and he rode forward to give some energetic advice to the jockey, but just then he saw that the Vice-President was ambling along at his side on an easy-going nag. "Mr. Van Buren," he exclaimed, "get behind me, sir! They will run over you, sir!" and the Little Magician, with his characteristic diplomacy, which never gave offense, gracefully retired to the rear of his chief, which, Mr. Peyton used to say, was his place.
President Jackson used to visit his stable every morning, until he became feeble, and he paid especial attention to the manner in which his horses were shod. He never, after he became President, played cards or billiards, nor did he read anything except the Daily Globe and his private correspondence. When he received a letter that he desired one of his Cabinet to read, he would indorse on the back "Sec. of ——, A. J." He used to smoke a great deal, using either a new clay pipe with a long stem, or a pipe made from a piece of corn-cob, with a reed stem.
Cock-fighting had been one of General Jackson's favorite home amusements, and he had become the possessor of a breed of fowl that was invincible in Tennessee. He had some of these pugnacious birds brought to Washington, and one spring morning he rode out toward Bladensburg, with a select party of friends, to see "a main" fought between the Hermitage and the Annapolis cocks. The birds were not only trained to fight, but were equipped for their bloody work. Their heads and necks were plucked, their tail feathers were closely trimmed, and their natural spurs were cut off and replaced by "gaffs," or sharp blades of finely tempered steel. Each bird had his trainer, ready to administer stimulants and to sponge the blood from the wounds inflicted by the gaffs. General Jackson was very confident that his favorites would again be victorious, but there was no fight, to the great disappointment of all present, who doubtless possessed what has been called "the devil's nerve," which thrills with base enjoyment in the visible pain of man, beast, or bird. The long confinement in coops on the stages, or some other unknown cause, appeared to have deprived the Hermitage birds of their wonted pluck, and the Annapolis cocks crowed in triumph.
There was a grand wedding at Arlington in Jackson's time, when Lieutenant Robert Edward Lee, fresh from West Point, came up from Fortress Monroe to marry the heiress of the estate, Mary Custis. Old Mr. Custis was delighted with his soldier son-in-law, whose father had said of Washington that he was "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." The Marshalls, the Carters, the Fitzhughs, the Taylors, and other "first families of Virginia" were represented at the wedding, and the happy young couple went, after the ceremony, to old Fortress Monroe, where they resided for a while in a casement fitted up as officers' quarters. The next year Lieutenant Lee brought his bride back to Arlington, which was their happy home until he was persuaded to enlist under the "stars and bars" of the Southern Confederacy.
One of General Jackson's favorites was Jemmy Maher, an Irishman, whom he had appointed public gardener, a position of some responsibility in those days, when its holder had to look after the gardens at the White House, the Capitol, and the Departments. Jemmy's father had been forced to flee to this country to avoid punishment for participation in the Irish rebellion of '98, and the son regarded all Englishmen as his foes. General Jackson, who had "whipped the British" at New Orleans, was the object of his especial adoration, especially as he used to forgive him when the Superintendent of Public Buildings occasionally complained that he drank whisky rather too freely. "Shure, Mr. President," he would say, "I niver drink unless I am dry, and it would be mane in me not to invite me frinds to jine and take a drap with me."
General Jackson was not fond of the theatre, but he went to see the widely heralded performance of Miss Fanny Kemble. The niece of Mrs. Siddons, and the daughter of Charles Kemble, she had been trained from early childhood to sustain the reputation of her distinguished theatrical family. A good-looking young woman, with large, dark eyes, a profusion of dark hair, a low forehead, and healthy strawberry-and-cream complexion, she was personally attractive, and wonderfully effective. Every movement, gesture, and inflection of voice had been carefully studied, and when making an ordinary remark in conversation she would deliver her words with a deliberate attempt at stage effect. Her Juliet with her father's Romeo, was her best character, but they failed signally as Lady Teazle and Charles Surface in the School for Scandal.
Miss Kemble did not remain long on the American stage, as she became the wife of Mr. Pierce Butler, a wealthy slave-owner, in 1834. The next year her Journal appeared, in which she criticised what she had seen and heard with a free hand, but "'twas pretty Fanny's way," and no one got angry over her silly twaddle. One of the fair author's predictions concerning the fate of our polity yet awaits fulfillment. "It is my conviction," said she, "that America will be a monarchy before I am a skeleton." Fifty years have passed since these words were written, and the prophetess has developed into a portly matron, anything but a skeleton, and very unlike the slender Miss of Jackson's time.
When Jefferson was President, the agricultural town of Cheshire, in Western Massachusetts, which had been drilled by its Democratic pastor, named Leland, into the unanimous support of the Sage of Monticello, determined to present him with the biggest cheese that had ever been seen. So on a given day every cow-owner brought his quota of freshly made curd to a large cider-press, which had been converted into a cheese-press, and in which a cheese was pressed that weighted one thousand six hundred pounds. It was brought to Washington in the following winter on a sled, under the charge of Parson Leland, and in the name of the people of Cheshire, was formally presented to President Jefferson in the then unfinished East Room. Jefferson, of course, returned thanks, and after having a great wedge cut from the cheese, to send back to the donors, he invited all present to help themselves. The cheese was variegated in appearance, owing to so many dairies having contributed the curd, but the flavor was pronounced the best ever tasted in Washington.
Jackson's admirers thought that every honor which Jefferson had ever received should be paid to him, so some of them, residing in a rural district of New York, got up, under the superintendence of a Mr. Meacham, a mammoth cheese for "Old Hickory." After having been exhibited at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, it was kept for some time in the vestibule at the White House, and was finally cut at an afternoon reception on the 22d of February, 1837. For hours did a crowd of men, women, and boys hack at the cheese, many taking large hunks of it away with them. When they commenced, the cheese weighted one thousand four hundred pounds, and only a small piece was saved for the President's use. The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day. Even the scandal about the wife of the President's Secretary of War was forgotten in the tumultuous jubilation of that grand occasion.
General Jackson received that day for the last time at the White House, and was so feeble that he had to remain seated. Mrs. Donelson stood on one side, and on the other was Van Buren, who was inaugurated as President a fortnight later.
[Facsimile] your obt. sert. William R. King WILLIAM RUFUS KING was born in North Carolina, April 1st, 1786; was a Representative in Congress from Alabama from November 4th, 1811, until he resigned to accompany William Pinkney to Russia as Secretary of Legation, April 23d, 1816; was United States Senator from Alabama from March 4th, 1819, until he resigned to go as Minister to France, April 9th, 1844; was again United States Senator from December 7th, 1846 to March 4th, 1853; was elected Vice- President on the Pierce ticket in 1852, as a Democrat, receiving two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes, against forty-two electoral votes for W. R. Graham, a Whig; having gone to Europe for his health, he took the oath of office near Havana, March 4th, 1853; returning to his home at Catawba, Alabama, where he died, April 18th, 1853, the day following his arrival.